If I only could
by Mezzy-Pen
Summary: Steve thought he had laid his past to rest, but after one bad mission he thinks differently. Luckily, Tony there to set him straight again. Steve/Tony. Slash. Song fic. Complete.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything.

**Song:** Running up that Hill – Placebo

**Pairings:** Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Captain America/Ironman.

**World:** Movies.

**Warnings:** This is slash, don't like move along.

**Summary:** Steve thought he had laid his past to rest, but after one bad mission he thinks differently. Luckily, Tony there to set him straight again.

oOo

_It doesn't hurt me.  
You wanna feel how it feels?  
You wanna know, know that it doesn't hurt me?_

If there was one obvious thing in the last few months that Tony Stark has noticed about their Captain, and that is the man has taken a large about of his time in dedicating himself to knowing how much has changed since he had been 'asleep'. The transformation was astounding; you almost couldn't notice that he was form another time period, almost anyway. He still came out with some dubious comment, but he could work a laptop.

But then again there were times, when there was a certain light in those damn blue eyes, which made him seem almost sad. It was when he thought no one could see it, as soon as something moves he was back. What's more was when he had his art supplies out on the balcony drawing away to himself. It was a shadow, it was his past. The part of him that no matter how far down he buries, sneaks up on him at moments and makes him feel like the only person in the world. It hurts Tony to watch him in those moments, when he is not the captain, when he is just Steve.

One night, after a rather successful mission, if Tony did say so…Fury on the other hand would disagree. He sat with Steve outside by the pool, watching the stars, when he ask him a question that been nagging in the corners of his genius mind.

"Does it hurt?" he asked in the gruff voice of his.

"Does what hurt?" Came the softly spoken reply.

"Remembering the past? Your past? Knowing nearly everyone you loved closely, is dead or dying?" Straight to the point Tony, he never really beats around the bush. One of many things Steve admired him for.

"It did." He said, pausing thinking his words over in his mind carefully. Tony turned his head to stare at the man next to him in a curious manner, many questions perk to spill form his lips. "But, not any more. The past is the past Tony. I can't bring it back, but I have learnt to deal with that." The blonde's face was blank, not a single emotion could Tony pick off it.

"How did you manage that?" He asked softly unwilling to disturb the comforting silence that was enveloping them.

"You found me, and brought me back." Was the only answer he would give, smiling the sweetest saddest smile Tony just wanted to keep and wipe of his face at the same time. He twitched his lips into a smile and returned to gazing at the stars with the man that was quickly becoming his best friend.

_You wanna hear about the deal I'm making?  
You be running up that hill  
You and me be running up that hill._

The mission had gone wrong, so terrible wrong. Tony could tell that Captain America was taking it hard, but not as bad as Steve Rogers was taking it. The moment they got back to the mansion, Steve was the first one into the house and straight upstairs, ignoring everyone as he ran away. The others simply turned to him with a look of surprise and question on their faces; he simply shrugged a shoulder in a 'How-the-hell-should-I-know' manner, before heading downstairs to strip out of his armour.

When he was down in his work shop, he tinkered away at a few unfinished products while tinkering over the 'Steve-Problem' as he was calling it in his mind. He thought back over the mission, yes it had been bad. But no one spoke out in his mind that had got overly hurt, so a few civilians had probably died, but that kind of happen when they collapsed down buildings etc. but accidents happen all the time. Frowning harder, because he felt like there was specific he was missing, even with his genius level IQ he couldn't even begin to think what was bothering his lover.

The mission was replaying itself over and over in his head, and still he couldn't see what could have possibly of…oh. The sound of a pinning dropping would have echoed through the house, now he understood why. Launching himself out of his chair, he ran up into the house calling for JAVRIS to give him Steve's location, he was in his room still. Bounding up the stairs dodging passed Clint, how was sporting a nice black eye that certainly wasn't from the mission.

When he reached his room, Bruce and Thor were standing outside, either guarding it from everyone who dared enter, or the hugely upset superhuman from the inside. He wasn't overly bothered by which, he nodded at them as he approached.

"He won't answer." Bruce commented as he stood in front of the door.

"Aye!" cried Thor "He hides all his hurt from us, Friend Tony; we do not know what to do!"

"They are right," Natasha said coming down the corridor to stand with them. "But then again, I don't think we have been sending in the right ammunition." She gave Tony a knowing look before silently walking away from them, silently wishing Tony luck because luckily Clint only got softly hit in the eye. Lover boy or not, Steve was not happy.

_And if I only could,  
Make a deal with God,  
And get him to swap our places,_

Steve was staring intently out of the window he could hear the others outside of his door; he was quite resolved on ignoring them for now. Since he just wanted to be left alone for the time being, for the first time since he had buried his past, he felt that same cold pain claw at his chest. There was a burning sensation behind his eyes; his face was hard from trying to stop the emotion showing on his face.

He just wanted to be alone, why couldn't they understand that, there was a reason he had locked himself away into his bedroom and locked the door. When Clint came out of nowhere, he reacted without thinking, which meant he would be apologising tomorrow to him. But tonight he just wanted to be left alone, in his room by himself. He ignored the soft knock at the door, followed by the gruff voice that could only belong to Tony.

"You know where I am, when you want to talk." Steve looked at the door, like someone just brought him his saviour; if Tony told everyone to back off they would listen. They knew Tony knew him best, and know he would get him want he wanted. Tony knew the boundaries that Steve had laid down the moment their friendship went beyond well friendship. Steve allowed himself to wallow in his self-pity as he watched the sun fall and begin to rise again, he had spent nearly all of those hours trying not to think of the mission and as he watch the peak over the horizon it all came crashing back.

_Be running up that road,  
Be running up that hill,  
Be running up that building.  
If I only could, oh..._

The first thing to go was the lamp beside his bed, breathing hard he looked at the shattered pieces on the floor. Blood pounding in his ears, he picked up the nearest objects and started throwing them about the place. Bed was dislodged, his precious art supplies broke and shattered, mirror was smashed, and nothing was spared from his onslaught.

Hearing the chaos coming from their captain's room, the team ran to his aid. Thor smashed down the door with one hefty shove of his shoulder, as the team stumbled though the threshold. Their captain was backlit by the rising sun; his eyes were an icy shade of blue; his hands at his side, slowly dripped with blood onto the floor from the cuts on his hands; Bruce ran towards Tony bedroom, the only one not to of been woken up by the racket, whilst the team stood around their captain unsure on how to proceed.

_You don't wanna hurt me,  
But see how deep the bullet lies.  
Unaware that I'm tearing you asunder._

Tony whirled around the door frame, only spending enough time to shove on some sweatpants and his hair was still tussled with sleep. He stood in the doorway just watching his lover for many seconds; Steve's blue eyes glistened as they just stared at each other. Tony moved forward first, seeing all the kept up pain in the blonde's man eyes, he moved until he stood in front of his captain looking into the swirling blue depths. The team moved away as Tony came nearer, knowing he had everything under control for them…and to be honest none of them knew how to go about an emotional captain.

Tony wrapped his arms around Steve's slim waist, allowing the taller man to slump against his own body and resting his head in the crock his neck and shoulder. Slowly Steve brought up his own arms, to loosely wrap around his lover's waist, while deeply breathing in the scent of Tony: the sweat; the slight remains of his cologne; the machine oil; and the always under lying scent of something burnt. It smelt like home for Steve, and that brought him over the edge, hot silent tears started to spill over his eyelashes and onto Tony skin.

Tony shifted at the unexpected moisture on his shoulder, instinctively he tighten his arms around the other man, quite confused on what could have possibly brought the man to tears.

"Hey, what's wrong?" He asked trying to be his usual self, attempting not to start ranting of anything that came to mind, since he had never ever seen Steve cry. He brought up a callous hand to get Steve to face him; however the captain refused to move his head. Tony mentally signed to himself, settling for rubbing a soothing hand a up and down the strong back that quivered with suppressed emotion that now coursed through him.

"Baby, I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong." He tried coaxing, a ramble of words poised on his tongue if the elder? Younger? Man didn't reply to him. He waited for a few more seconds before he couldn't stop the tumble of words.

"You know, I know. Cause I figured it out and you know you are not alone in this. I don't really know what to do, even with my genius IQ. So you might just wanna help me out in this, you know, whatever really. We could go for a ride, I let you drive. This once anyway, we don't want another accident like the one before do we? I mean you couldn't handle a stick if you're life depended on it, but let's be fair you handle it pretty well for your first go. But you know whatever you wanna do…" His mad ramblings were stopped by a firm finger to his lips; Tony had to shift a bit to look at the blue eyes that peered at him from under the dark lashes.

"Just stay here with me, just for a moment." The dark haired man nodded, knowing he was meant to be silent in that moment; he leant forward to press a chaste kiss to his forehead.

"I'm not going anywhere." He murmured into the tufts of blonde hair.

_There's a thunder in our hearts, baby.  
So much hate for the ones we love?  
Tell me, we both matter, don't we?_

Steve broke away at dawn the next morning on his bike, where he was going he didn't need anyone else, but when he got back he knew Tony would be there with a hot chocolate and a blanket to snuggle down and to watch a film with. Today was all about apologies and forgiveness, because Steve really just couldn't let it go. He blamed himself, and now history had repeated itself. Different time, same warzone. He can remember it like it was yesterday, standing in one of the French fields. The plan was perfectly laid out, they were about to head off to save the world from Hydra. Then the call came through, an SOS for an ally base was being attacked. They were too late.

He watched them, it was just a spilt second, but it felt like hours. There was a nurse, he knew her, engaged to one of his troops, Tom Smith. She was pregnant, it was her last week before she was too ship back to safety. He remembered the she looked: Her face was smudged in dirt, blood, and ash; her dark hair falling out of her curls and hat; he uniform was a mess; she rested her hands over her stomach as she stood around corpses and enemies. Then she saw us, she smiled through her tears at me, before they put a bullet through her head. Killing her and her unborn child instantly, he would have been husband followed her that day as well.

Steve blamed himself for not being better that day, for not arriving fast enough; for not being good enough.

_You, be running up that hill  
_You and me, be running up that hill  
You and me won't be unhappy.

Steve slowly approached a fresh grave, with a white head stone. There was a small engraving to mark the grave:

_Emily Stone._

_Daughter. Sister. Wife._

_May she rest in peace, her and her unborn child._

_They sleep with the angels now_.

She had worn a white dress, her baby bump showed slightly. Her dark hair was swept up, and she had blue eyes. Just like before, he was too late to help, to save people. She didn't deserve to die, neither was another child supposed to lose its life to mad man with a stupid plan. The building was old, and badly structurally damaged, he tried. But he was too late, he yelled at her to move. She looked at him and smiled, as the wall came down upon her. Once again, another child who would never live and another love one gone.

He placed a hand on the stone as he knelt before it, tears glisten in his eyes, but he refuse to let them fall. They didn't deserve his tears, or his apologies. They should be alive, and he buried in the dirt. Instead it was the wrong way round, and he lived another life.

"I am so sorry. It should not be you two. It should be me." He gripped the stone hard, careful not to crack it.

"If I only could, make a deal with God and get him to swap our places." He trailed off as he felt a tender hand on his shoulder; he turned to see an old woman staring at him. She leant forward to kiss both with cheeks, before holding his face tenderly in her withered hand.

"Without you heroes, a lot more would have died. And a lot more would be wishing they were dead, or soon enough. You are not perfect son, but thank you for trying." She patted his cheek once softly in an affectionate gesture, after she left Steve realised he was crying. The woman was right, and he felt a huge weight lift off his chest, all he had to do was to keep trying. That's all he could do, the guilt wasn't gone, but it hurt a lot less.

_Be running up that road,  
Be running up that hill,  
Be running up that building,  
If I only could, oh..._

He made it back to the mansion just in time for supper; afterwards he was quickly put under a cover with some hot chocolate and snuggled into Tony's chest. He still wandered sometimes what could be and what has happen, but then Tony would nudge him and the moments would pass.

After everything that had happen recently, it was nice to be surrounded by his team…his friends and just remember that he had a life to live too. But, he also felt the duty to live for the people that hadn't made it. For people like Emily, and her unborn child.

_And if I only could,  
Make a deal with God._

oOo

**Author's Note:** Wow, I write some depressing stuff. Sorry, hopefully that wasn't too bad. Some constructive feed back would be nice. *nudge nudge* *wink wink*


End file.
